military

South Korea announced on Nov. 13 that an unnamed soldier defecting from the North was rescued and taken to a hospital after he was found shot in the shoulder and elbow in the border village of Panmunjom.

A dramatic video of the 24-year-old, identified only by his last name, Oh, escaping North Korea, is fascinating to watch.

Officials in South Korea said that the escape took place after the North Korean guard abandoned his post and tried to escape. CNN reported that this was the third defection of a North Korean soldier this year and that there had only been four such defections in the past five years.

South Korean officials added that the soldier was in such a bad spot they needed to crawl to save him. Part of the video shows this.

“The defector was urgently transferred to a hospital in a helicopter of the United Nations Command, and there was no exchange of fire with our side,” a South Korean ministry official told Reuters. “Since it was an area exposed to the North, we had to crawl toward there to get him out.”

It’s not clear at this time how high-ranking the soldier was in Kim Jong-un’s army, but we do know he was in the military for eight years and was a vehicle driver.

The video shows multiple North Korean soldiers firing at Oh. He was shot at least five times.

The lead surgeon in South Korea said Oh is “not going to die” from these wounds, ABC News reported.

ABC News said it appeared North Korea violated the 1953 Armistice Agreement signed by the U.N., North Korea and China by firing guns across the military demarcation line and by physically crossing the line.

The family of a fallen Massachusetts soldier is once again fighting to defend his identity from complete strangers using his pictures on fake social media accounts and dating sites.

Lisa Haglof, who helps manage the Facebook memorial page for her brother, Army Staff Sergeant Matthew Pucino, told Boston 25 News she recently began receiving messages from people informing her Pucino's pictures and name were being used in online profiles to deceive and scam women.

Haglof said she reached out to Facebook, requesting they remove the accounts of "Damon Puccino," "Dusstin Alex Puccino." and "Emmanuel Pucino," all containing her brother's photos, stolen from the memorial page and other sites.

When the profiles weren't immediately taken down, Boston 25 News reached out to Facebook by email. Although Facebook did not reply by late Monday night, the three accounts soon disappeared.

A dating profile on Match.com under the name, "Captain Smiley," with a picture of Pucino, was finally taken down after Pucino's family's repeated attempts to have it removed, Haglof said.

"It’s really sickening for our family to have to go through this constantly, and it’s a battle," Haglof said. "Despicable. It’s disgusting, and these people can’t have any soul. I mean, who does that to a fallen soldier?"

Haglof has been dealing with the issue for years. In 2014, a New York man, Brandon Ashraf, was arrested and accused of stealing Pucino's identity in a catfish dating scheme targeting women.

But Ashraf wasn't charged with Stolen Valor, as Haglof had hoped, because he did not receive anything monetary in exchange, she said. Haglof hopes to change that law.

"Honestly, it’s like a whack a mole game," Haglof said. "That’s what I feel like. Every time I turn around we're getting rid of one and two more pop up."

The circumstances surrounding the crash were not immediately clear. Base officials said a board of officers will investigate the crash.

“Our biggest priority at this time is caring for the family and friends of our Airmen,” Col. Michelle Pryor, 47th Flying Training Wing vice commander, said in a news release. “We are a close-knit family, and when a tragedy like this occurs every member of the U.S. Armed Forces feels it. Our people take top priority, and we are committed to ensuring their safety and security."

He gave 11 years of his life to serve our country, now our country gave Sgt. Gregory Politte the honor of the burial he deserved thanks to men and women who didn’t know the former member of the Air Force.

A New Jersey bar held a self-imposed NFL blackout over Veterans Day weekend, instead holding a fundraiser for veterans and their families after players continue their silent, kneeling protests during the playing of the national anthem this season.

Rob Johnson, co-owner of Woody’s Roadside Tavern in Farmingdale, New Jersey, had the idea after one of his customers who is a Vietnam vet said that he felt disrespected by pro football players taking a knee to protest police brutality, NJ.com reported.

So Johnson decided to turn off the games for Veterans Day weekend. He also gave 20 percent of food sales to the Green Beret Foundation and Special Forces Chapter 19 to help veterans and their families, NJ.com and The Asbury Park Press reported.

The bar was filled with supporters during Sunday’s event. One hour after it started, waiters had run out of glasses, with 300 to 400 customers, The Press reported.

The Department of Homeland Security announced the small town near the Kansas border will host a biological weapons simulation.

In 2018, the department wants to release "non-hazardous, non-toxic" chemicals and biological materials on buildings in the area. They want to see what might happen if a terrorist were to release similar chemicals as a biological weapon.

"I just got sick to my stomach," said Newkirk resident Dennis Jordan. "I think if they want to test that stuff, let them go to Los Alamos, you know? I think it's stupid."

For the particle test, the government plans to release titanium dioxide, which it describes as a "white odorless powder that is chemically insoluble in water, nonreactive, nonflammable and nonhazardous."

For the biological test, the government plans to release genetic barcoded spores of an insecticide sold under the trade name of Dipel. Dipel is not considered hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency when handled appropriately, according to the assessment.

Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Estes of Kansas said Thursday he is "monitoring the situation closely."

"I have numerous questions regarding this proposed test," Estes said. "While it's important for our federal agencies to test their abilities in response to threats, we need to be 100 percent certain this test is safe for the residents of south-central Kansas."

The city of Arkansas City has also said it's reviewing media reports of the testing.

"This is the first time the city has been made aware of any testing to occur at Chilocco," the city posted on its Facebook page Thursday. "Inert means chemically inactive, which means by definition there should be no risk to the citizens. However, we are looking into the situation to gather more information for our citizens and their safety."

Tiny came home Wednesday, three-quarters of a century after he left, bearing the same grin that made him a darling of Palm Beach High’s Class of 1941 and filled with ardor to save the world — or die trying.

With the military unable to make a firm identification of his shattered remains, they laid him in a numbered grave with those of others until authorities used 21st-century technology to make a match. And finally send him home.

He will be buried at 11 a.m. Friday— the day before Veterans Day — in a family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in West Palm Beach.

This meant that Kelley essentially had a clean record, even though he’d been court-martialed, dishonorably discharged and pleaded guilty to domestic abuse charges. Because his charges were never entered into the NCIC, they essentially didn’t exist.

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 amended that Federal Gun Control Act of 1968 to affect a total of nine conditions that make someone ineligible to own a gun, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. They’re serious offenses like felony charges, known substance abuse, a dishonorable discharge from any branch of the armed services, a misdemeanor (or higher) domestic violence conviction and others.

Kelley is now known to qualify as a “prohibited person” — i.e., barred from ever legally owning a gun — on two of those conditions. He received a dishonorable discharge stemming from domestic abuse charges that he pleaded guilty to in 2012, according to Military.com.

Kelley pleaded guilty to one incident of domestic abuse in which he “struck his wife by beating her with his hands, kicking her, as well as choking her and forcefully pulling her hair” and another incident, a beating of a child under 16 in which he hit the child “on the head and body with a force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm,” according to court documents reviewed by Military.com. These incidents occurred between 2011 and 2012.

Three additional charges were withdrawn and dismissed. They alleged that Kelley struck a child, as well as assaulted and threatened his wife by pointing both loaded and unloaded firearms at her.

As for Kelley and owning a firearm, that should have been it. A convicted domestic abuser with a dishonorable discharge, he would have failed any background test run on him for the purpose of acquiring a permit or purchasing a weapon.

But his convictions never came up on background checks; they were never entered, according to the Air Force, which has pledged a “complete review of the Kelley case by the Air Force Office of the Inspector General” in a statement released Monday.

Bergdahl, who was held by the Taliban for five years, did, however, receive a dishonorable discharge for deserting his post.

Shortly after Friday’s news, President Donald Trump, who criticized Bergdahl on his 2016 presidential campaign trail, called the sentence a “disgrace” in a tweet.

Here are nine things to know about former American prisoner of war Bergdahl:

He’s from Idaho.

He was born in Sun Valley, Idaho, on March 28, 1986, and grew up in Hailey, Idaho, amid the Sawtooth Mountains.

According to The Associated Press, his home was “a humble place with a weather-beaten roof, sits nestled among hills of alder and sage.”

He was home-schooled.

Bergdahl and his older sister were taught at home near Hailey, Idaho, where they lived with parents Robert and Jani Bergdahl.

He received a GED from a local college.

He used to dance ballet.

Bergdahl was a dancer with the Sun Valley Ballet School until his early 20s. He also dabbed in martial arts and fencing and had a love for the outdoors.

Watch one of his ballet performances below:

He once worked as a crewman on a sailboat.

As a crewman, Bergdahl sailed along the East Coast and down to the Caribbean, as well as out of Bristol Bay, Alaska.

He enlisted in the Army in 2008 and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2009.

In 2009, Bergdahl was deployed from his first assignment in Fort Richardson, Alaska, to Outpost Mest Malak in Paktika Province (eastern Afghanistan), as a machine gunner.

Biography.com reported that though Bergdahl told his parents he was initially thrilled by the experience, he eventually “sour[ed] on the purpose of American forces in the region.”

Their mission in Afghanistan was to “get the Taliban,” Bergdahl’s former Army team leader Evan Buetow said.

That means they’d perform combat operations, but also patrol villages, train the Afghan National Police and gather intelligence by earning the respect of locals.

Platoon medic Josh Cornelison told the AP that Bergdahl preferred the humanitarian aspect of the job than the “actual combat side of a deployment. He wasn’t so fond of that at all.”

This is what he said in his last email to his parents from the field:

On June 27, 2009, Bergdahl sent this email to his parents:

“I am sorry for everything here. These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid, that they have no idea how to live,” he wrote.

Bergdahl also wrote about a time an Army vehicle had run over a local girl, but “we don’t even care when we hear each other talk about running their children down in the dirt streets with our armored trucks.”

His father responded to the email and wrote, “Dear Bowe, In matters of life and death, and especially at war, it is never safe to ignore ones’ conscience.”

Bergdahl’s parents shared the emails with Rolling Stone magazine.

He abandoned his post on June 30 and was captured by the Taliban.

His abandonment on June 30 set off an extensive search that eventually led to the death of at least six servicemen.

The next month, Bergdahl surfaced in a 28-minute online video posted by the Taliban in which he seemed unharmed.

U.S. intelligence believed he was being held captive by the militant Haqqani network, which had ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

He was released on June 13, 2014.

The Taliban posted several more videos over the next five years featuring Bergdahl in deteriorating condition.

Bergdahl later revealed that he had been tortured and brutally beaten, at times spending long stints locked in a cage, where he was chained on all fours.

In 2014, President Barack Obama announced the U.S. had successfully negotiated his release.

The U.S. agreed to release five Taliban members who were being detailed at the Guantanomo Bay Naval Station in Cuba.

But former platoon mates and other critics spoke out against Bergdahl’s being heralded as a hero during his release.

“In Hailey, joy quickly turned to bafflement as townspeople faced an onslaught of hate mail and angry phone calls from people who said Bergdahl doesn’t deserve to be celebrated. A planned welcome-home party was cancelled. His parents are surprised and ‘very hurt’ by the outcry, a former pastor who is in touch with them said.”

About the investigation and charges:

An Army investigation into what led to Bergdahl’s disappearance on June 30, 2009, concluded by charging Bergdahl with “one count of desertion with intent to shirk important or hazardous duty and one count of misbehavior before the enemy by endangering the safety of a command, unit or place.”

Though the second charge could potentially lead to life improsonment, Bergdahl was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder “at the time of the alleged criminal conduct” in an Army Sanity Board evaulation and now suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder. Investigators recommended he avoid additional incarceration.

Bergdahl spoke about his gruesome experience on the second season of the popular podcast, “Serial,” in 2015 and 2016, and said he initially abandoned his post to rebel against the poor leadership of his Army supervisors and planned to gather intelligence on his own.

After the podcast’s first episode was released, Gen. Robert Abrams, of U.S. Army Forces Command, said he would reject the original investigation charges and referring Bergdahl’s case to a general court-martial.

During the 2016 campaign trail, president-elect Trump suggested Bergdahl should be executed for abandoning his fellow Army soldiers, a comment the defense said hindered the potential of a fair trial. But the trial went on.

Bergdahl put his fate into the hands of military judge Col. Jeffery Nance in August and pleaded guilty to desertion, and misbehavior before the enemy.

On Nov. 3, Nance ruled Bergdahl would not serve prison time, but will be dishonorably discharged.

Bergdahl’s rank was also reduced from sergeant to E1 and he will be required to pay a $1,000 fine from his salary for 10 months.